Thursday, September 03, 2015

The ORIGINAL Billy's Boots! (1963)

Most of you will be familiar with Billy's Boots, the adventure strip that began in football weekly Scorcher in 1970 and later continued in Tiger for many years. However, several years before that there was another strip with that name and a similar premise. This Billy's Boots was in Tiger in the early sixties, and the example above is from the issue dated 23rd February 1963.These original boots had a scientific explanation for their power, as opposed to the supernatural influence of the later version. I'm not sure who the artist of this strip was but it's a very nice, bold cartooning style reminiscent of Peter Maddocks and Wally Fawkes.

I see what you mean. There's a bit of a similar inkling technique too in the broken lines for some of the folds in clothing. As you said though, it might be too early for Cliff Bown as he didn't seem to appear in comics until the 1970s.

I think whoever drew it is tapping into a certain style of the times. Similar techniques were used by several cartoonists in the late fifties/early sixties. It could be by someone who swiftly moved from comics into other illustration work, or whose style changed a lot. Whoever drew it did a very nice job anyway.

It's great to see this, it looks surprisingly contemporary for over 50 years old! I never knew of this incarnation of Billy's Boots. I love the Billy Boot's artwork by John Gillatt and am continually searching for the Holy Grail that is an original piece of his BB artwork.

Hi Lew, Yes, I regularly look on ebay, in fact I've just picked up an On The Buses original by Harry North - another of my favourite artists. It's been quite fruitful for Harry North artwork, and this latest one was just £35 - a bargain in my eyes, but John Gillatt work seems rare. There must be a fair bit of it about as he drew Billy's Boots for many years (I love how it changed to cricket during the summer) and there's also his Scorer and Johnny Cougar work. There is some of his Jet Ace Logan strips on the Illustration Art Gallery, but this was a bit before my time so doesn't have quite the same appeal. Love your blog, always an interesting read.

Excellent cartooning I really like this, I bought 3 old Tigers a few years ago in a buLk sale (20 comics in a bag for £10 so a good deal no matter what but as all comics were pre 1972 US and UK) and never really looked at them in any detail I'll need to see if this is in there - great stuff again

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Established in 2006, BLIMEY! is dedicated to British comics past and present. Images are copyright their respective publishers and are only used here for review purposes.

The images of comics on my blog are scanned from my own personal comics collection or, in the case of some current issues, are promotional images sent to me by the publishers. On the rare occasion when I might use an image from another site I always credit the source. If you take images I've scanned to use on your own blog/site I'd appreciate it if you'd have the good manners to show the same courtesy.

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About Me

I work as a professional humour comics artist and writer and have been freelancing full time since 1984, creating many characters such as TOM THUG, PETE AND HIS PIMPLE, COMBAT COLIN, BRICKMAN, ROBO-CAPERS, DEREK THE TROLL, SUBURBAN SATANISTS and others.
I've freelanced for IPC, Marvel Comics, Egmont, Panini,D.C. Thomson, and many others, covering the comics field from originated characters to licensed properties, pre-school to adult on comics such as BUSTER, OINK!, BEANO, DANDY, TRANSFORMERS, SONIC THE COMIC, TOXIC, VIZ, CiTV TELLYTOTS, LEGO ADVENTURES, HERMAN HEDNING, SWEET FA, ACTION FORCE, SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN, RAMPAGE, LUCKY BAG COMIC, SWIFTSURE, WARLOCK, WHITE DWARF, ACES WEEKLY, THE DAREDEVILS, THE MIGHTY WORLD OF MARVEL, and many more.
My recent comics work has included:'Team Toxic' for Egmont's TOXIC magazine'Postman Prat', 'Kid Cops' and 'The Dark Newt' for THE DANDY'Rasher', 'Pup Parade', 'Lord Snooty' and 'Ivy the Terrible' for THE BEANO.
'The Daft Dimension' for DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE.